Steps
by ThatGirlIsabel
Summary: Yokas deals with her partner after a harrowing event. Rating's there because regardless of what NBC and their ilk would have you believe, people cuss. Plus there's an adult situation or two.


Don't ask me why I wrote this. I happened to see a rerun of the episode "The Long Guns" on A&E one night many moons ago and thought, "Hey, that'll make a cool angsty thought fic!" I guess. So here it is, in all its glory, and don't kick my ass if I don't get a lot of the technical details down right. I have no idea if they actually caught that guy from the Laundromat, and I'm not a cop so I'm sure I screwed something up somewhere. If you wanted a fic about working at AutoZone, now that I could do accurately. Also I wrote this long before I ever saw the episodes that followed, including the one where the paint blows up all over Bosco and he finally loses it.

Anyhow, feedback is welcome (in fact I live for feedback, good or bad), and don't sue. I don't own these people, and you'll get nothing because I'm poor. AutoZone, remember?

Steps

_____

Bosco is an asshole.

Proud and self-righteous at all the wrong times, stubborn as all hell and downright rude. He's dismissive and smug, boorish and spiteful.

Sometimes she wants to grab him by his shirt and slam him into the side of the Crown Vic. Shove him hard, get right up in his face and tell him to knock the shit off and just be real. Just be a person. A cop.

Crouching on the steps with the snipers at her side, she wanted to believe that he deserved it. Deserved to be up there on that roof in a stranglehold with his own gun at his head. But he didn't deserve it, and she knew that. Trying to force herself to think otherwise took the edge off, though.

Helped her focus.

Another thought sidled up to her amid the others. The thought that Hobart was going to shoot her partner and that she would be all alone.

Briefly she wondered if he'd had similar thoughts several weeks ago, when he was fighting a perp for control of that same gun. When he was screaming her name and getting shot at point-blank range and she was in the stairwell seeing tracers and desperately trying to crawl towards the sound of his voice.

She decides she never wants to see another set of steps long as she lives.

He's okay, though. Bosco's fine, physically at least. He's breathing and retains all his basic motor functions.

Including one that's not so basic for him.

Seeing him cry is a little hard for her to process at the moment, but she's too busy thanking all the ancient Norse gods and all the fat happy Buddhas that it isn't Hobart standing here with her partner's blood spattered on his face to give it a second thought.

Bosco is too busy yelling at Glen's body to notice.

"He wasn't gonna hurt me!" he says to the gathering officers, and she almost tells him that the bruises already forming on his throat demand otherwise.

It's barely five. A couple hours into their day and this happens. The whole rest of the shift to go.

Sully has on one of his faces that makes him look like he's just gotten a whiff of rotten milk. Davis glances at Doc and Kim, both kneeling beside Hobart. Someone's radio crackles, but now Bosco is moving away and she follows, far back enough to give him his personal space but close enough to let him know she's there.

He wipes his face and looks at the salt-laced blood on his hands for a moment, then snorts and averts his eyes, disgusted.

She's not sure if it's his tears or Hobart's blood that sickens him.

Behind them, one of the ESU guys says something to Kim. Sully growls something into his radio, his voice thick.

Bosco turns to look at her. Just for a second, almost as if to make sure she's still with him.

She is.

Partners. Faith and Boscorelli know each other well. It's how they operate; by knowing what the other officer is going to do and how to coincide with that. By acting and reacting accordingly, oftentimes in a situation where spoken words would mean death. Most of the time it works.

It works today. Before they even get to the outside door, she glances over at him and knows that he isn't going to drive. His eyes are down and he says nothing, but she knows.

It's not the most important thing in the world, but it's something.

He doesn't strap in as she puts the Ford in gear. 

_He's not your kid, _she has to tell herself, looking sideways at the dangling clasp of the passenger seatbelt, rolled and tight the way she likes it. _Don't pester him. If he doesn't want to buckle up, he doesn't want to buckle up._

Kids. The kids and Fred. She still has them, thank Jesus. A safe, warm home at the end of the day, beautiful children and a loving husband. Sure, they're all asleep by the time she actually gets home, leaving her to gather the remnants of their day, but at least they were there. It usually involved carrying a sleeping child from the couch to their respective bed and tiptoeing into her own bedroom so as not to rouse her snoring husband.

And during the shift? A partner and a city-owned Crown Victoria. Not a bad deal.

Bosco won't be trying for ESU, not after this. From the moment he brought it up, she hoped it was some retarded pipe dream that would fizzle out and die within a week's time. He expected her to ride into it at his side with guns blazing, but there was no way. And as much as the idea of a desk job appealed to her sore head, she was too dedicated to working a beat car to switch tracks.

Even the mere thought of giving it up makes her feel the way Sully looked up on that roof.

A pothole jolts the car, and her police cap rolls from the console to the floor, on Bosco's side of the car. Flat Stanley stares up at him with a Crayola smile, paper arms outstretched as if beckoning for a hug.

Bosco's an arrogant bastard.

It's not his fault. From what she's heard, her idea of his family is a lowlife, abusive father, a brother paving the road after him with drugs, and a mother drinking her way into old age at entirely too _young_ an age. If anybody's been kicked around and pissed on, it's him, and the fact that he wears a badge doesn't help.

He deals with life the only way he knows how, and though it might not be the best way, it gets him through the day.

It's a hard job for someone who's had a hard life, but Faith comes up short trying to think of someone she'd rather share a patrol car with. She allows herself a silent ghost of a smile because he won't be leaving her for ESU and she won't be stuck working a desk, and hopes he doesn't notice.

"Sorry."

For a moment, she's afraid that this is the tail end of a conversation she should have been paying attention to while she had been lost in her own thoughts.

She blinks and the smile gives way to a frown. "You got nothin' to be sorry for, Bos."

He's leaning his head against the window, staring down at Flat Stanley. The buckle on his right clink-clinks gently as the RMP slows for a red light.

"Shouldn't have made that crack about birth control," he says, and sighs. "That was stupid. I'm sorry."

She flips the lever on the steering column, signaling a left turn. Backsplash from the traffic light casts a slick red glow across the hood and Yokas focuses on it as she struggles with what to say. 

At the time, his comment had pissed her off plenty, but that was before 4:40 this afternoon. Recent events had all but made her forget the remark, even though she had been struck with the realization that if anybody but Bosco had said it, she would have broken her foot off in their ass, or at least threatened to. Even that goddamn smile he had given her immediately afterwards had been overlooked.

Because he's Bosco and _only_ because he's Bosco.

"Sorry about Glen, too," he says.

She knows what to say to that. "Hey, listen to me, that wasn't your fault--"

"In the Laundromat," he cuts her off, still staring at Charlie's class project. "You had it under control and he fucked it up for everyone."

A few stray drops of rainwater shiver as the engine idles gently, transformed into little pink dancers by the red bulbs and the white hood. Bosco looks up, but not at her. "I don't know why I agreed with him in the first place. Guess I wanted to look good. Back him up so he'd help me with those stupid tests. And with you, at the house… figured it would've looked pretty dumb to go back and admit I thought you were right when I'd already said otherwise in front of everyone else."

Now he does gaze at her, and the look in his eyes scares the shit out of her. They are dull and silent, when they usually speak volumes.

Bosco looks dead inside.

Faith decides that she hates Glen Hobart with a fiery passion, and at the moment is glad that he's lying in a roof in a puddle of his own blood, his heart still and cold. Because of that bastard, Bosco is sitting here looking like an empty shell of his former self. Looking like he hates his life and wants to stop existing. 

She wants the old Bosco back. The one who's cocky and smart-assed, who loves his job and who she can trust with her life. She wants back the frustrated disagreements, the shouting matches, the times full of nothing but concern and the days they can laugh and bullshit back and forth like old friends.

"Don't worry about it. You hear me? It's not a big deal, all right?"

For a split second, the deadness in his eyes vanishes and is replaced by one of his old looks. It's an expression she knows well, one that means he's thinking something about her and acting as if she couldn't be the furthest thing from his mind. He gave it to her a long time ago at Mercy, after a rapist in a subway station beat the crap out of her with a pipe and he gave it to her today in the car when she told him she wouldn't be going for ESU.

Another flight of stairs leaps from her memory. The rapist with the pipe had ambushed her from behind a staircase. One more reason to loathe the sight of them.

She glances up in time to see the signal click from yellow to red, probably for the second time since she stopped the car.

When she looks back at him, the old expression is gone and he's a shell again.

He's watching the light, too. "Two statements in as many days. Two shootings. Christopher'll be in such a good mood."

Damnit. He's right. Christopher is going to have a two-by-four up his ass that's bigger than usual. 

To their left, less than twenty minutes away, sits the set of steps they have to ascend to get back into the station house. Then at least an hour of dealing with Sgt. Christopher when none of them were at their finest. To their right, at least a few moment's opportunity to distract Bosco by using up some of that city-owned 87 octane. A short drive would give her the chance to talk with him a little more, maybe get him to open up.  At the very least they could grab some coffee down at Ellie's.

Hell with that jackass. Christopher will get his statement when he gets his damn statement and Faith isn't in a rush.

She turns right. "Get your seatbelt on, Bos."

He leans into the seat as he does, not questioning her change in direction. He knows her well enough.

Fifteen seconds later at the next intersection, he takes it right off again.

"That's him— that's the Laundromat PCP motherfucker!" Bosco throws the door open and takes off before she can fully apply the brakes. He stumbles as his feet hit pavement and the door gives him a good whack on his left hip as it bounces back, but he rights himself almost immediately and then is gone.

Tires bark and undergreased u-joints clunk as she rams the gear selector into Park and steps out onto the street. She doesn't bother to shut her door, right hand going for her service pistol and left already on her radio as she rounds the RMP after her partner.

She doesn't even hear herself make the call, but somewhere amid her bouncing handcuffs and the frantic baying of an unfortunate dog walker's charges as they almost collide, there is undoubtedly a radio transmission. It begins with the standard five-five David to Central, ending with their location and direction of pursuit. 

A 10-4 crackles back to her just as she skirts the near building, and Faith is just in time to see Bosco take a flying leap after Rafe Connor. 

His tackle is right on target; Connor goes down face-first onto the sidewalk from a dead run. 

She doesn't stop running, but she's still more than five hundred feet from them when she sees the guy struggling for Bosco's sidearm from underneath him even as one cuff ratchets shut on his wrist.

Now she halts, certain that her heart has stopped as well, gun brought up and a clear shot of Connor's head in her sights, but he moves and all she can see is Bosco's back as he fights to snap the other cuff closed on an uncooperative wrist. Faith screams her partner's name and a migrating herd of Girl Scouts on her end of the sidewalk shriek in return, ducking behind their troop leader. 

"Hey, asshole, that's mine," Bosco snarls. "Hands off." He stands, keeping one foot on Connor's back, and she recites a silent prayer of thanks when she sees the perp's hands restrained behind him.

Faith holsters her pistol with a shaky breath, ignoring the pack of frightened children and the tangle of wagging tails. All she sees is Bosco dragging Connor to his feet.

The perp has a ruined nose and he walks stiffly, but gone are the wild eyes and compulsive gnawing. Gone is the desire to fight, replaced with the unhealthy pallor and glazed, defeated stare of an addict whose fix has worn off long ago.

"You're under arrest, hotshot. Whassa matter? Couldn't score today? Huh? Ain't so fast now, are ya?" Bosco is saying, and she looks from the junkie to him.

He's smiling.

It's a broad, happy smile, and the old cockiness is back in his eyes where it belongs. He nods toward Connor as he approaches her. "Look what I found, Faith. Can I keep it?"

"You okay?" she asks, an unwanted image of her partner's own gun being trained on him for the second time that day sneaking into her head.

"Of course," he tells her, and catches her off-guard: "Had you there to watch my back." 

He sounds so confident that Faith almost thinks she misheard him due to the frantic galloping of her heart. She only manages a nod. _But he moved. The bastard moved out of the way and I couldn't have done a damn thing because I would've had your back, all right. I could have shot you right in it. _

Out of the blue, the Partner Instinct strikes with a vengeance. It's in the soft touch of his hand brushing against hers as he hands Connor over; it's in the crooked, self-satisfied grin he flashes her, and it's in the very air between them. He doesn't say it, but again she knows. 

He's driving.

She finds herself smiling back as he trots over to the waiting Crown Vic. He holds open the right rear door for Connor. "Your chariot awaits, shithead." 

Bosco at his best.

The old Bosco, _her _Bosco's triumphant return isn't going to last forever. She's well aware of this. Sooner or later he's going to have that damning lifeless look in his eyes and she'll be left talking to a shell again, at least until she can bring him out of it, but for the moment, she'll take what she can get. 

And what she gets right now is the knowledge that collaring the perp today is a momentary repair for what Hobart has done to her partner, and the distinct gut feeling that given time and effort, he'll be good as new.

She tightens the cuffs, pushing Connor down into the backseat with a hand on his head as Bosco hits his radio to call in their collar, still wearing that familiar smile. He moves around towards the driver's side, where the interior chime chastises them for leaving the doors wide open.

Connor wipes at his bloody nose with one shoulder, and she shuts the door. He makes an inquiry from behind Ford Motor Company glass: "He your partner?"

"You're damn right he is."

These steps, she doesn't mind so much.


End file.
